Obakan mi, Adeshina:
Kò rí béè o (No be so)!
Like you, I've watched this video a few times. Unlike you, though, each time, I was impressed. Why? Trust me, the West has been put on notice with the piercing words of this single African leader. Of course, it would not go without a fight - the slave master never lets go of his slaves with mere handshakes. Recall Nyerere's declaration of the Ujamaa and his notion of education for self-reliance. Of course, the consequences on Tanzania, one of the most literate nations in the world were massive. But so what? There is no crown without its cross.
The challenge Nana Akufo-Addo is throwing to young Africans is to stay in and fight strong; not just to run off and seek greener pastures on the vast land of their slave masters. Seriously, it's okay to talk, not to brag, but then the man did not brag, neither did he threaten. Yep, Thomas Sankara was not a talker; but then, do you really want another handsome Thomas Sankara in the nice-looking army uniform, providing a hope that would prove abjectly effervescent, a "revolution" that never outlived its beginning?
Let's see how this plays out. Let's give leadership a chance. Africa is one mythical Dada who could not fight but blessed with an audacious little brother. Let President Akufo-Addo be that little brother fighting for his timid big brother. We've waited more than half a century. It can't hurt at this time. We are an oral-literate people. Let our words start the fighting.
Michael O. Afolayan
Jet-lagging Still
On Friday, December 29, 2017, 2:39:42 AM PST, Adeshina Afolayan <adeshinaafolayan@gmail.com> wrote:
I have also watched the video. Is this mere rhetoric. No; it is a beautiful one with all the necessary delicious and tantalizing soundbites. But it is a rhetoric all the same, and we have heard it before, from Nkrumah to Fanon. I don't think we need any more of this. A revolutionary who will include all these rhetorical issues in a solid policy transformation does not need talk. I doubt Thomas Sankara was a talker. We need action; a real transformation of the architecture of thinking, attitude and policy. No one needs rhetoric to do that; revolutionaries are not talkers! Action men and women act! And that is what Africa needs...action!
Unfortunately, most leaders become captive of the office immediately they resume. I have no illusion, for instance, about George Weah as the president-elect of Liberia. Pessimism has its own reward! And it stands solidly on the backside of terrible and protracted negative political experience.
Adeshina Afolayan, PhD
Department of Philosophy
University of Ibadan
Nigeria
+234(80)-3928-8429
On Friday, December 29, 2017 11:03 AM, Michael Afolayan <mafolayan@yahoo.com> wrote:
Thank goodness, there indeed comes a time when the tongue ceases to be docile. After six decades of docility, a Daniel has finally come to judgment! Let's hear the remaining 54 heads of governments of the remaining African nations follow the lead horse rider and speak out with renewed urgency, ardent resolve, native intelligence, and seriousness of purpose. Thanks, Prof. Africa shall rise!
Michael
On Thursday, December 28, 2017, 4:37:59 PM PST, segun ogungbemi <seguno2013@gmail.com> wrote:
Africa self-esteem
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